Police abuses

[Crazed Rabbit]

Every police officer?

Of the Philadelphia PD, how many are standing up against this?

JHT - could you elaborate?

CR

[Visor]

Of the Philadelphia PD, how many are standing up against this?

JHT - could you elaborate?

CR

Okay. I would imagine that's a false generalisation though.

[johnhughthom]

JHT - could you elaborate?

CR

I don't believe anybody would use a cellphone to record police doing their job "to help". If you want to help, you let them go about their job and don't bother them unless you actually have some information of use to them. So I'm automatically thinking of them as liars and don't really believe their story.

[ajaxfetish]

I don't believe anybody would use a cellphone to record police doing their job "to help". If you want to help, you let them go about their job and don't bother them unless you actually have some information of use to them. So I'm automatically thinking of them as liars and don't really believe their story.

I don't suppose doing something 'to help' necessarily means it was done to help the cops. Maybe they were trying to help the greater good by making a record of the truth and protecting the innocent?

Ajax

[Papewaio]

That's assuming that the people they want to help aren't just cops. Plenty of people are attracted to power who then go on to abuse it. Be it senators or bus drivers, anyone public official or company CEO can and does break the law.

Police are not the exception to the rule. They are public officials and there will be rotten apples amongst them. Good cops should be happy with bad cops getting kicked out. Bad cops make the work for good cops harder, more dangerous and demeaning as the good cops get tarred with the same public perception as the worst abusers.

There is a reason most good public institutions are setup with a separation of powers. This is so they can counteract abuses of power. Maybe a more intensive look at what can be done to balance ou police powers, root out he corruption and assist the good cops out there.

[Major Robert Dump]

I don't understand being butt hurt about cops being recorded. They record us. They record themselves.

The vast majority of police misonduct convictions stem from recorded evidence. Does this mean that misconduct never existed before recorders? A cops word will trump the word of 6 eye witnesses, and I am not saying that is a bad thing. Recording is a form of checks and balances. How many clear-cut cases of misconduct caught-on-tape situations do we need before people stop expecting cops to recieve immunity from the constitution? We have tougher ROEs in war zones that most cops do these days.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I don't believe anybody would use a cellphone to record police doing their job "to help". If you want to help, you let them go about their job and don't bother them unless you actually have some information of use to them. So I'm automatically thinking of them as liars and don't really believe their story.

So, their job is beating up on people and the peasants better shut up and get out of the way? And another part of their job is destroying unfavorable evidence?

I don't understand being butt hurt about cops being recorded. They record us. They record themselves.

They don't want to be accountable. They can delete (as they often do) their own videos when it shows them in a bad light. But the peasants daring to record video evidence that proves they were in the wrong? Why, then it's time for a beating!

Also, remember those Denver cops who got fired after getting caught beating on two innocent people on a city security camera? (And, per usual, charging the beating victims with crimes and lying on police reports.)

The beating victims, Shawn Johnson and Michael DeHerrera, told 9NEWS they're confused, shocked and sick to their stomachs over the reversal.

"I don't think I need someone to say, 'Yes, Shawn, you were right, your civil rights were violated and these cops were out of line.' I don't need to hear that because I know what happened that night," Johnson said. "But I do expect people who are put in certain position to protect me, to protect me when I can't protect myself."

"It was finally clear what was right and what was wrong and everybody agreed that they were wrong," DeHerrera said. "So now to put that back up into the air is just ridiculous."

Immediately after they were arrested April 4, 2009, they were charged with misdemeanors and faced jail time for allegedly interfering with officers and not following orders. The young men had been kicked out of a bar after one of them used the women's restroom.

Johnson was considering cutting a plea deal when their attorneys learned city cameras had captured their arrests on camera. The video showed the officers tackling and hitting the men repeatedly with a metal weapon while they were not resisting. Police records later showed the officers lied on their reports.

The video also showed DeHerrera calling his father for help. Anthony DeHerrera, a Pueblo Sheriff's Department deputy, was upset at the panel's decision to put the officers back on the force.

"I'm shocked, appalled, disappointed. We can't believe it. There are knots in our stomachs," Anthony DeHerrera said. "I guess we had it wrong. Denver Police can do whatever they want to whomever they want and get away with it."

We can't have that! Quick, police union to the rescue! Let's get those thugs back in their jobs, with years of back pay, and to top it all off, say:

Because of the reversal, the police union called it a very happy day.

"They didn't deserve termination," Nick Rogers, president of the Police Protective Association, said. "At the end of the day, you actually have human beings who were out trying to protect the public and were doing it and were darn good cops at the time. They will come back and they will be good cops again."

Rogers says Garcia should be "ashamed of himself" for judging Murr and Sparks on nine seconds of video, along with the media. While the city is expected to appeal, Rogers said the union "will stand behind them until the bitter end."

Late Tuesday, acting Manager of Safety Ashley Kilroy said she supports Garcia's decision to terminate the officers.

"I cannot and do not tolerate excessive force in our city's safety agencies or departing from the truth by any of our employees," Kilroy said in a statement.

And Officer Crazypsychopants of Canton Ohio stars in a third video where he threatens to kill someone he pulled over. This man was cleared of 15 complaints in the last decade, and the chief says he knew nothing about his psychotic officer;

NewsChannel5 Investigator Sarah Buduson asked Canton Police Chief Dean McKimm how Harless was able to get away with his bad behavior.
Buduson: “Why didn’t you know this was going on?”
McKimm: “I don’t understand your question.”
Buduson: “You’ve been in charge for a long time (9 years), how come you didn’t know about Harless’s behavior?”
McKimm: “Because there was no evidence Harless was a problem.”
NewsChannel5 obtained more than 700 pages of records on Harless from Canton police. The records showed there have been a total of 18 internal affairs complaints against Harless since 2000.
In 15 of the cases, Harless was exonerated.
“Each one of the complaints was investigated and they’re investigated thoroughly and completely,” said McKimm.
“It depends on the situation,” said Chief Dean McKimm, when Sarah Buduson asked him if the number of complaints against Harless is normal.
McKimm said hard-working officers are often the subject of false complaints.
“The number of complaints always raises a red flag,” said McKimm. “Until you can prove the officers have done something wrong, that they’ve violated some policy or procedure, we obviously can’t accuse them of doing something.”
“Officers do get lied about all the time. It does happen,” said McKimm.

Remember how the police union referred to those Denver thugs as good cops, doing 'darn good work'? Gee, it's almost like beating on people makes you a good cop, or brutality is so widespread that almost all cops do it.

Oh, that homeless guy beaten to death while crying for his father in Fullerton, CA? The police are refusing to release the surveillance video, or any of the videos they seized from witnesses. http://www.pixiq.com/article/fullert...another-camera

CR

[Louis VI the Fat]

[QUOTE=Crazed Rabbit;2053371326]So, their job is beating up on people and the peasants better shut up and get out of the way? And another part of their job is destroying unfavorable evidence?



They don't want to be accountable. [...] [removed by Ser Clegane] It's all too similar to the Catholic church. When the public calls out the rotten apples they charge on the messenger, instead of on the abuser within their own ranks.
This is a dead end. A losing proposition too. We are a democracy, we shall never shut up about government abuse. We exist to serve and protect democracy. We managed to beat the Catholic church into submission too. We did this by relentlessly calling out abuse, without giving in to - in itself well intended - advice to be hush-hush about abuse, lest we hurt the feelings of non-abusive Catholics.



[...] [removed by Ser Clegane

[Papewaio]

So LVItF why not join the police or prosecutors or judges or politicians and spend half that passion correcting the system from within?

[Louis VI the Fat]

So LVItF why not join the police or prosecutors or judges or politicians and spend half that passion correcting the system from within?

I do.

Albeit not any of these four. There seems to be a mechanism that the more direct government authority one has, the greater the tendency to abuse it, and the more the esprit de corps is to close ranks and protect abusers.

[Samurai Waki]

Wall Street Protester in New York City, personally I think it's pitiful that they need this many cops for 1200 non-violent protest. Coward Pigs the lot of 'em.

[Viking]

One thing is to point out police brutality; something quite different is it to resort to daft name calling.

[Samurai Waki]

If they weren't, I wouldn't resort to daft name calling.

It's frustrating as hell seeing this sort of thing go down and not a single thing is said in the news-- it's pathetic, and these police officers are pathetic.

[Crazed Rabbit]

One thing is to point out police brutality; something quite different is it to resort to daft name calling.

So what do you call it when you pen in peaceful protesters and then mace them while they're just standing there?

CR

[Montmorency]

I only saw 2 protestors get maced.

[Viking]

So what do you call it when you pen in peaceful protesters and then mace them while they're just standing there?

CR

The individual cops that did this may well be 'coward pigs', but that's now how I read that post. It read more like an assessment of all the cops that had been called out.

[Samurai Waki]

The individual cops that did this may well be 'coward pigs', but that's now how I read that post. It read more like an assessment of all the cops that had been called out.

Anyone who uses excessive force against an unarmed, non-violent protester is a thug at best and traitor at worse.

NYPD pissing all over First Amendment Rights

[ICantSpellDawg]

And Kelly said that the NYPD is able to take down a passenger plane if it was justified...

This action was despicable and whoever gave the mace order should be publicly disgraced.

[drone]

Tasers and mace are for "compliance".

[Samurai Waki]

NYPD- NOT YOUR POLICE DEPARTMENT

I also hear they like arresting children, it makes them feel tough.

[Viking]

They have no riot gear in NY?

[Crazed Rabbit]

Cop pulls man over, says he smells weed. While frisking the guy, he intentionally grabs his crotch, then uses the reaction as an excuse to attack the victim and put him in a chokehold. The cop also used the reaction as probable cause for a search. The thug and another cop eventually pin both arms behind the victim's back, before raising them in order to torture their victim. Then the thugs use his screaming and writhing in pain as an excuse to taser him.

Remember, we wouldn't have heard anything about this if it wasn't for the video.

Oh yeah, they didn't find any pot on the guy. Who needs a constitution, anyway?

POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — An internal affairs investigation is under way after a man claimed an officer grabbed his genitals during a videotaped traffic stop, then choked and shocked him when he reacted.
Brice Wilson, 23, told Channel 2’s Tom Jones the encounter left him shaken and afraid. "It was really frightening. It was very frightening," Wilson said.
The incident happened at the intersection of Old Austell Road and Atlanta Street in Powder Springs. Wilson said the officer pulled him over because his license plate light was out.

The officer's dashcam video system recorded the stop. The video showed Officer K. Moore asking Wilson to get out of his car and then telling him he smelled marijuana on him.
"I'm gonna ask you this one time -- One time only, 'cause I smell the marijuana all on you. Where's it at?" Moore can be heard saying on the video. The video goes on to show Wilson repeatedly saing he doesn't have any marijuana.
The officer then calls for back up and orders Wilson to put his hands on the front of his patrol unit. "Spread your legs," Moore said.
The video then shows the officer grabbing Wilson's genitals.
Jones asked Wilson if the officer in fact grabbed his crotch. "That's what it felt like. It felt like he violated me and I told him that," he said.
The dashcam video showed when Wilson reacted by grabbing the officer's hand, Moore put him in a chokehold, and another officer hit him and both officers took him to the ground.
Both officers then screamed at Wilson: "Where's it at? Where's it at?"
"I told you I don't have it," Wilson hollered back. The two officers then raised Wilson's handcuffed arms high behind his back. He screamed in agony.
The officers said Wilson wouldn't be still so they shocked him with a stun gun.
"Help! Help!" Wilson screamed on the video.
"We got a serious tactic being employed by the police here," Jim Howard, Wilson's attorney said of the officers' actions.
Howard said officers grabbing men's genitals is a strategy aimed at getting a reaction out of them.
"You get grabbed in the genital area as a young man, it's impossible not to react. You have to react," he said.
Once an arrestee reacts, Howard said, the officer can say a crime was committed and he can then search the arrestee any way he wants.
"If police officers continue to believe that they can get away with this, we're all at danger. In fact, we move a step closer to not being America," Howard said.

CR

[drone]

Oh yeah, they didn't find any pot on the guy.

That's odd. If they were going to go through the risk of beating a guy up on the dashboard camera, you would think they would at least be smart enough to plant a small bag on the guy if nothing turned up.

[Vladimir]

Cop pulls man over, says he smells weed. While frisking the guy, he intentionally grabs his crotch, then uses the reaction as an excuse to attack the victim and put him in a chokehold. The cop also used the reaction as probable cause for a search. The thug and another cop eventually pin both arms behind the victim's back, before raising them in order to torture their victim. Then the thugs use his screaming and writhing in pain as an excuse to taser him.

Remember, we wouldn't have heard anything about this if it wasn't for the video.

Oh yeah, they didn't find any pot on the guy. Who needs a constitution, anyway?



CR

This is what I thought of as I read the quote:

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Wall Street Protester in New York City, personally I think it's pitiful that they need this many cops for 1200 non-violent protest. Coward Pigs the lot of 'em.

Give that girl an oscar...

[Crazed Rabbit]

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/story/1557...still-on-force

CLAYTON COUNTY, GA (CBS ATLANTA) -
A Metro Atlanta police officer is accused of being out of control and assaulting the citizens he was sworn to serve and protect.

CBS Atlanta News has obtained more than 500 pages of internal affairs complaints lodged against Clayton County police officer Michael Hobbs in the last five years.

Chief Investigative Reporter Wendy Saltzman found dozens of use-of-force reports brushed aside by Clayton County internal affairs, including claims Hobbs is terrorizing citizens.

One of those citizens is Brian Hoolihan. Hoolihan passed out in his car along side a road in Clayton County in a diabetic coma back in 2007. He had a sticker on the window of his car, warning about his life threatening medical condition.

A police report shows Officer Hobbs arrived at the scene and wrongfully assumed Hoolihan was drunk. Hobbs forced himself into the car and struck Hoolihan twice with a closed fist to the face and another blunt elbow blow to his head.

"My face was all beat up, my ribs were either broke or cracked," said Hoolihan. "I had black and blue marks on the back of my legs, you can tell it was from the baton. There were, I think, seven stitches above my one eye."

CBS Atlanta obtained the gruesome pictures of Hoolihan, bloodied and beaten on the side of the road, at the hands of an officer who was supposed to protect him.

"He was out of control," said Hoolihan. "The next thing I remember is waking up in the ambulance."

Hoolihan's was just one of 12 disturbing complaints filed against Hobbs over the last five years at the Clayton County Police Department.

CBS Atlanta confirmed there has been no disciplinary action taken against Hobbs, and not a single day of suspension for an officer with 58 incidents of use of force. That's nearly 20 times more often than an average Clayton County police officer had in the same time period.

"Do you think an officer can be threatened by somebody who is in a diabetic coma and basically passed out?" Saltzman asked.

"I wasn't there," said Chief Porter. "Again, there was a thorough investigation. The investigation revealed that his actions were within departmental policy and procedure."

"They just think they're above the law because they are the law," Hoolihan said.

Records show multiple cases of closed-fist beatings, knee strikes, and choke-holds used by Hobbs. But the chief defends what other's characterize as terrorizing and an abuse of force.

"I am comfortable as police chief with his actions," Chief Porter continued.

Possibly the most disturbing part of the records CBS Atlanta uncovered is a report from a fellow officer who resigned, sighting Hobbs' out-of-control behavior and racist remarks as the reason why.

In other news ...
Sexual assault goes unpunished when you're a cop;

Officer Albert Rincon, who was hired by the department five years ago, allegedly had a habit of detaining women and either making sexual propositions to them, groping them, or doing both, the document states.

Rincon admitted that, in violation of city policy, he never called for a female officer to help pat-down women he detained. The policy states that "whenever practical" pat-downs should be done by an officer of the same gender as the person being searched.

Another city policy requires officers to wear a digital audio recorder and turn it on when they contact a subject. Perhaps even more damning than ignoring the pat-down rule, is the fact that Rincon consistently turned off the audio recorder at some point during the detention of the women. "This is different than simply forgetting to switch it on. This means that Rincon chose to leave no audio recording of the arrest," Guilford writes. When asked about why he turned off the recorder, Rincon had no explanation, the document states.

The city of Fullerton found out about the allegations in early November of 2008 and launched an investigation. By the end of the month they had put Rincon on paid administrative leave and notified the Orange County District Attorney's Office so they could investigate, too.

Curtis McLean, an investigator in the DA's office, looked into twelve cases in which Rincon had arrested women. Of the twelve cases, seven women made claims of misconduct. McLean sent his results to the DA's office, but they decided not to file criminal charges. "There are no facts in the record that reveal why," Guilford writes of the DA's decision.
...
Guilford called the city's handling of the situation "weak" and "shocking," noting that it raised questions about the custom and practice around sexual assault in the department. "Requiring Rincon to attend 'pat-down' training is weak sauce that does nothing to hide the unpleasant taste of complicity...At the end of the day, the City put Rincon back onto the streets to continue arresting women despite a pattern of sexual harassment allegations."

In other Fullerton news, two of the group of cops who beat the homeless man to death were actually charged with a crime - murder!

Their defense argument is basically; that homeless guy getting beat on by multiple cops had it comin';

Schwartz also disputed the district attorney's statement that Cicinelli hit Thomas eight times in the head and face with the front of the Taser. He said his client struck Thomas only when the homeless man grabbed the hand holding the Taser at least twice.

"The Taser was falling out of his hand," said Schwartz, who said he's watched the video.

Susan Kang Schroeder, the district attorney's chief of staff, said the video shows Cicinelli struck the homeless man with the Taser before Thomas grabbed for it, and then struck him at least seven additional times.

Schwartz also said that Rackauckas misstated elements of the chronology of events in the video and the threatening words Ramos made to Thomas, which formed the crux of prosecutors' rationale for the murder charge against the veteran cop.

The full quote, Schwartz said, was: "See these fists? They are getting ready to f— you up if you don't do what I say."

Ramos made the statement simply in an effort to get Thomas to comply with his commands, Barnett said.

Schroeder dismissed that contention.

"No reasonable jury will believe the threat made like that could ever be conditional. It was made in a menacing way," she said. She added, "We know what Ramos meant because he carried it out."

Man, no wonder so many cops attack people for videotaping them. How are they suppose to beat the life out of people for kicks when they're being recorded?

CR

[Xiahou]

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies
To put that another way, we ruined people's lives so we could get better numbers on our monthly evals...

Anderson, testifying under a cooperation agreement with prosecutors, was busted for planting cocaine, a practice known as "flaking," on four men in a Queens bar in 2008 to help out fellow cop Henry Tavarez, whose buy-and-bust activity had been low.

"Tavarez was ... was worried about getting sent back [to patrol] and, you know, the supervisors getting on his case," he recounted at the corruption trial of Brooklyn South narcotics Detective Jason Arbeeny.

"I had decided to give him [Tavarez] the drugs to help him out so that he could say he had a buy," Anderson testified last week in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

The city paid $300,000 to settle a false arrest suit by Jose Colon and his brother Maximo, who were falsely arrested by Anderson and Tavarez. A surveillance tape inside the bar showed they had been framed.

A federal judge presiding over the suit said the NYPD's plagued by "widespread falsification" by arresting officers.

[a completely inoffensive name]

We fabricated drug charges against innocent people to meet arrest quotas, former detective testifies
To put that another way, we ruined people's lives so we could get better numbers on our monthly evals...

A good podcast with true stories of that exact thing happening as policy within the NYPD. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...n-silent?act=2

[Vladimir]

A good podcast with true stories of that exact thing happening as policy within the NYPD. http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...n-silent?act=2

Stop it! You're scaring the Europeans.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Remember when we used to think it was just a few bad apples?

Hundreds of off duty police offers rally in support of their criminal colleagues in NYC;

A three-year investigation into the police’s habit of fixing traffic and parking tickets in the Bronx ended in the unsealing of indictments on Friday and a stunning display of vitriol by hundreds of off-duty officers, who converged on the courthouse to applaud their accused colleagues and denounce their prosecution.

As the defendants emerged from their morning court appearance, a swarm of officers formed a cordon in the hallway and clapped as they picked their way to the elevators. Members of the news media were prevented by court officers from walking down the hallway where more than 100 off-duty police officers had gathered outside the courtroom.

The assembled police officers blocked cameras from filming their colleagues, in one instance grabbing lenses and shoving television camera operators backward.

The unsealed indictments contained more than 1,600 criminal counts, the bulk of them misdemeanors having to do with making tickets disappear as favors for friends, relatives and others with clout. But they also outlined more serious crimes, related both to ticket-fixing and drugs, grand larceny and unrelated corruption. Four of the officers were charged with helping a man get away with assault.

Jose R. Ramos, an officer in the 40th Precinct whose suspicious behavior spawned the protracted investigation, was accused of two dozen crimes, including attempted robbery, attempted grand larceny, transporting what he thought was heroin for drug dealers and revealing the identity of a confidential informant.
...
The charged officers, accused of extending favors, seemed to have received a favor of their own from the authorities. They were spared a “perp walk,” the ritual in which suspects are walked to their booking or arraignment while photographers and videographers document their shame.

Instead, the officers were loaded into black vans at the Central Booking garage, then driven into a garage in the courthouse.

The ticket-fixing investigation began serendipitously in December 2008, after investigators began looking into accusations that Officer Ramos allowed a friend, Lee King, to sell drugs out of two barber shops named Who’s First that the officer owned in the Bronx. A wiretap was placed on Officer Ramos, which yielded conversations about fixing tickets.

The authorities said Officer Ramos provided Mr. King with an apartment, a cellphone, a car and a parking placard. He was one of the civilians arrested.

Prosecutors said the bulk of the vanished tickets were arranged by officials of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, the city’s largest police union. All the officers charged with fixing tickets are either current or past union delegates or trustees.

As the investigation unfurled, the union played down its significance and consistently referred to ticket-fixing as “professional courtesy” inscribed in the police culture.

Patrick J. Lynch, the union president, said in a news conference that the officers had been arrested on something “accepted at all ranks for decades.” He did distance himself from those charged with graver offenses. He said he would have turned his back on Officer Ramos if he could have done so without insulting the court.

Mr. Kelly said that those who tried to rationalize ticket-fixing as part of the culture “are kidding themselves, especially if they think the public finds it acceptable.”

During the investigation, overseen by the Bronx district attorney’s office, prosecutors found fixing tickets to be so extensive that they considered charging the union under the state racketeering law as a criminal enterprise, the tactic employed against organized crime families. But they apparently concluded that the evidence did not support that approach.
...
On Thursday afternoon, the police union sent a text message to 400 delegates urging them to show up at the court. Scores of police officers began filtering in around midnight on Thursday, when some of the accused officers arrived for booking. Some off-duty officers wore dark-blue T-shirts with the message on the back, “Improving everyone’s quality of life but our own.”

Forming a wall four deep in the main foyer, they applauded as the defendants appeared. The indicted officers waved and pumped their fists. A court official who came out to calm the crowd drew insults. A woman told the officers to return for the arraignments.

On Friday morning, on the street outside the courthouse, some 350 officers massed behind barricades and brandished signs expressing sentiments like “It’s a Courtesy Not a Crime.”

When the defendants emerged, many in the crowd burst into raucous cheers. Once they had gone and the tide of officers had dispersed, the street was littered with refuse.

Yup, rallying in support of being able to commit crimes without consequence.

CR